Looking Back

Knowing where we are going starts with knowing where we come from. Is that right? Who really knows where they came from prior to their parents or grandparents? Who has a clear lineage? Some may know, but the African-American community, as a whole, gets so far, and then there is NOTHING.

The heritage of Blacks in the United States comes with a permanent scar, slavery. Because of slavery, I cannot trace my ancestors back hundreds and hundreds of years. Why bother to look back? Do you want to discover that your relative counted as livestock? Or, that your great, great, great grand something was the product of a rape by his owner? What if your relative was hung because of the color of their skin? What do you do with that information, if you can find it? Does that inspire you? Does it make you feel like your future is bright?

When a scar fails to heal properly, infection sets in. The infection, untreated burrows down into your layers. It eventually gets into your blood stream, killing you. Racism is the bacterium that threatens to reopen our wounds. Allowed to fester, the infection gets deep.

• ·         Our education system fails us
• ·         The lack of decent jobs fails us
• ·         The degradation of our families fails us

With each failure, the bacterium moves to our blood stream. Our own blood ends up killing us. SELF-DESTRUCTION. This is what leads to black-on-black crime. We sell ourselves short because there is no legacy to live up too. We learn in school that we had no acknowledged beginning. We were people in our native lands, but once here, as slaves, we failed to reach the level of human being. Our history, a black hole leaving us wanting.

While many in White America wish that we would let the “race” issue die (we have our first Black president), our collective scar remains visible. I cannot look at my reflection in the mirror and pretend the hole in my soul does not exist. I cannot re-tell my family’s history without acknowledging that at some point in North America’s recent past, there will be nothing to tell.

What does our history tells us? What lay ahead? I don’t have the answer, do you?

Lala